9 JUSTICE LEAGUE: The Bright Knight
by Dan Bivens
Summary: What happens when four post Brainiac, i.e. in COMICS: BATMAN story THE HEADY KNIGHT, superheroes, Batman, Superman, Nightwing, and the Flash, decide to start a super group? Their first super villain: Doctor Light! JLA birth story.
1. Chapter 1

**THE BRIGHT KNIGHT**

By: Dan Bivens

Chapter 1

**(AUTHOR'S NOTE: These events take place immediately after those of my story listed under COMICS: BATMAN entitled "The Heady Knight"---Dizzy Dan)**

"Well, guys, what do we do now?" roguishly shrugged The Flash as he, Nightwing, Superman and, of course, Batman stood in the midst of a debris-strewn street in Metropolis mere minutes after their enjoined effort to drive away a super-villain calling himself Brainiac.

An inevitably victorious situation, thanks mostly to Batman and Superman.

"Well," groaned/grunted a still-tired/battered Nightwing, formerly Robin before the Batman advised Dick Grayson it was time to strike out on his own. "We could go grab some coffee…after we change back into less conspicuous clothing. Mine's in the Batmobile that I hitched a ride in after Batman activated its self-drive programming in order to speed it from Gotham City to Metropolis because of Brainiac."

"Mine's easily accessible, too," said Superman with a near-wink at his World's Finest partner-against-crime/super-villains, Batman.

"I can super-run back to my apartment in Central City, Missouri to change into my street clothes," said the Flash, then added arrogantly, "it's only around 1,000 or so miles. Should only take me two-to-three minutes. Tops."

The group grinned in regards to the World's Fastest Man's amusingly self-ingratiating tone and half-cowled face's smirk, only to cause him to ask in feinted innocence, "What?"

"And my clothing," finally injected the Batman, recalling, exactly, the instant, during Brainiac's earthquake-producing arrival, that both he, as Bruce Wayne, and Superman, as Clark Kent, rapidly eluded exposure so as to assume their costumed alter-egos inside the swank restaurant nearby, "is also easy to get at. I'll treat you all to whatever you want or need in a local five-star restaurant. Agreed?"

For Nightwing and Superman, who both individually understood the Caped Crusader's alter ego to be billionaire Bruce Wayne, such seemed acceptable. For the Flash…

"Why do I get the feeling, Batman, that your 'secret-identity'," said Flash, making funny finger quotes with red-gloved, yellow lightning bolt-encircled hands, "is definitely someone who can afford to treat someone whose super-speed powers always leaves him hungry enough to eat and drink his weight in expensive consumables? I'm in."

As to Lois Lane and Jimmy Olsen, who'd covered, via her words and his pictures, the four-against-one super-battle Brainiac brought about in the midst of Metropolis…

"All right, Perry, will do," heaved Lois into her cellphone, which she'd just used to vocally deliver a basic story for The Daily Planet newspaper to include in their next issue. Then, snapping it shut, said to the redheaded, freckle-faced photographer readying his swiftly snapped pics for transmitting, "C'mon, Jimmy, the Chief wants us back A-S-A-P. Seems he wants to expand the story for a major Page One."

"Sure, Ms. Lane," said Jimmy Olsen with a smile, then, "but what about CK?"

"He can catch his own cab," she grumbled while whistling for a taxi to stop short. "If he thinks I'd consider including anything by him in my story, while I did the heavy lifting…he's got another think coming."

Even as the four just-joined super-powered friends, the Batman able to claim such with two of the other three and Superman at least so for the Dark Knight while the Flash felt like the new kid on the proverbial block, proceeded in their plans to resume civilian status…

At the **S**cientific and **T**echnological **A**dvanced **R**esearch (S.T.A.R.) Labs, Gotham City branch, one of the many genius-level scientific researchers was nearing an end to the development of a military article of clothing he'd worked on for years…

Dr. Arthur Light: thirty-something; average height and weight; thinning hair; above-average build, due to diligently spending several hours per week working out in the S.T.A.R.-provided gym wherein brand new, not-yet-released-to-the-public, exercise equipment was test-used; Einsteinian intellect, geared more for actual development and invention than mathematics-supported space-physics; never-been-married; no children, legitimate or illegitimate; no Life outside of S.T.A.R. Labs; socially clumsy, even anti-social to a large degree.

"Yes," said Dr. Light with widening eyes and growing grin. "Yes! I've done it. I've done it!"

Even as other resident S.T.A.R. geniuses, whom had Lives and were not the lest bit anti-social, reacted to the Eureka reactions of someone with whom they seldom associated…

Dr. Arthur Light lifted up the extra-special costume-like suit whose design, using the nano level of electronics controlled by a master microcomputer forming a waist-positioned belt buckle-like bulge, was of an understated "unitard" nature.

"The military's answer to actual invisibility," he said under his breath, grin firmly in place, eyes a little too large. "I'll be famous. I'll be a multibillionaire greater than Bill Gates. But it has to be tested."

After glancing around and considering potential test candidates, his self-centered precocity came to a singular solution.

"Who better," he said with a near-insane smirk, "than me?"

Minutes later, the unique unitard, a one-size-fits-all invisibility-promoting form fitting getup that he'd already dubbed **PHO**tonic **MANI**pulation for **C**ombat (PHOMANIC), with an unconsciously included waist-to-chest symbol that looked for all the world like an upward-rising white over black "light energy" ending in a small star-like "light burst", was donned.

Stepping toward the pseudo-doorway of his large cubicle-enclosed science-laden atelier, Dr. Arthur Light activated his seeming super-suit…

…in order to vanish from view, quite literally, before laughingly deciding to head toward the chief scientist's office in order to more dramatically illustrate his extraordinarily developed "device" that, unlike many other's scientific attempts to achieve invisibility, had succeeded so completely.

"Wait until Dr. Garrison Slate sees…or, rather, doesn't see…my PHOMANICA suit," quietly considered an unseen Dr. Light as he proceeded past several sizeable scientific R-and-D cubicles wherein other mostly genius-level scientists dutifully toiled.

How could he foresee that one named Dr. Jacob Finlay, working with potentially deleterious chemical compounds in an equally egotistical attempt to create a superpower producing drug so that such as Superman, for instance, would not be so singular in existence.

The volatility of such suddenly exploded. Slightly injuring Dr. Finlay while permanently permeating the invisibility suit onto Dr. Light.

The end-result: Dr. Arthur Light, suddenly fully visible once again, was incapable of escaping a now bonded-to-body PHOMANIC black-and-white costume. But more than that, the chemical explosion apparently granted him a curious "super-power": to literally manipulate light for any purpose.

Something unconsciously used during a rage-filled instant of retaliation…

"Damn you, Finlay!"

…in the form of solidly deadly blobs of light sent forth from the quasi-insane scientist's hands. Brutally killing Dr. Jacob Finlay and utterly obliterating his cubicle of chemicals and equipment.

With a renewed widening of gaze and grin, Dr. Arthur Light proclaimed, "I am now Master of Light! I am truly…Doctor Light! Ha-ha-hahahaha-ha!"

END OF CHAPTER 1


	2. Chapter 2

**THE BRIGHT KNIGHT**

By: Dan Bivens

Chapter 2

Having taken the time to return to citizen-over-superhero status, Bruce Wayne shared his table, from which a shaken and scared Ms. Gotham City beauty winner named Elka LeBaron had left via Bruce's limousine in order to rest at their presidential suite atop the ritziest hotel in downtown Metropolis…

"You weren't kidding about 'eating your weight', were you, uh, Barry Allen, was it?" commented a bemused Bruce as he, along with Clark Kent and Dick Grayson, finished as a famished-due-to-super-speed blonde, blue-eyed, exceptionally well-built, criminologist from Central City continued stuffing his handsome face.

"Yeah. The accident that turned me into the Flash," Barry answered, barely pausing between bites from his tenth straight plate of gourmet comestibles, "…you know, the strange chemically diffused lightning bolt?…not only gave me mega-Mach super-speed, but so sped up my metabolism that anytime I tap into it in a fight situation…well, enough said, huh?"

"And you say you keep fit by spending seconds a day working out in Central City PD's police gym?" asked a struggling-to-understand Dick Grayson, non-super-powered police officer in Blüdhaven, not far from Gotham City, when not Nightwing, costumed crimefighter.

Nodding and eating, still!, Barry Allen replied, "Yeah. By working out at super-speed, I get the same benefit in seconds that most take hours to obtain. Not bad, huh?"

"And combine that," said Clark Kent, whose Kryptonian anatomy needed neither exercise nor great quantities of edibles, "with an incredibly high metabolism and running around at super-speed, and it's no wonder you stay so trim and, uh, cut."

Barry looked at Clark and jokingly said, "Uh, Clarkie, I, uh, do like women exclusively, so…"

For a split-second, Clark believed Barry had indeed thought him homosexual, when, to be honest, save for his love, pure and unrequited, for Lois Lane, the presently disguised Man of Steel was asexual.

"Oh, uh, no. I, uh, was just pointing out that, uh…"

It was just then that the joke became clear as Bruce and Dick, along with Barry, all laughed in the shadow of just-established friendship. Clark laughed, too.

Finally slowing his solid sustenance intake, the World's Fastest Man leaned back, while lazily sipping on his sixteenth glass of Coca-Cola, and said, "So, guys. We wanna team up or what? I could go for some sort of club or league or whatever. Not permanently, mind you, but once in a while when super-baddies are too much for even one of us would be okay."

Bruce was the first to respond, somewhat more solemnly than expected by Barry…

"As Dick and Clark will tell you," he said with a short-lived sigh, "I've always tended to be a bit of a loner. Except for when Dick was Robin…which, by the way, was my attempt to salvage something within him after his trapeze-act parents were murdered by Anthony Zucco, a Gotham City crime boss…not to purposely create a two-man team."

Barry rather rudely, and impatiently, utilized standard hand signals saying without speaking for Bruce Wayne to speed up his explanation. Which both Bruce and Clark correctly related to Barry Allen's super-fast physical and, it would seem, mental nature.

Bruce finally finished, saying, "At any rate…Batman doesn't exactly play well with others. Superman excepted."

"Understood," nodded Barry just as he started eating again on his final plate of delectable tidbits so his super-fast metabolism, at long last, would become mollified. "That's what I meant by forming some sort of league or something. And, ah-hem, with your vast fortune, Bruce, personal as well as professional, it wouldn't be hard for you to purchase the materials needed to come up with a kick-ass headquarters."

"Interesting," said Clark while the billionaire in the little group truly ruminated on such a proposition. "And I could use, uh, Superman's powers to build it somewhere no one, other than those belonging to this, uh, league, could find it. Maybe…on the Moon."

"The Moon?" almost laughed Dick, thinking the bespectacled reporter persona of the Man of Steel was simply making light of the whole thing.

It quickly became clear, from the simultaneous stares of seriousness from Bruce, Clark, and Barry, that such was most definitely not the case.

"Oh," Dick said as he screwed his handsome face into a look of incredulity. "You…you're really serious, aren't you? All of you!"

With an insouciant shrug, Clark said, "Why not? I, for one, enjoy it whenever Bruce…uh, Batman…and I get together to take on tougher-than-usual super-villains. Why not start a league? A league to seek out justice and salvation for the public-at-large. For the world."

"Hm," hummed Bruce in brief-but-deep contemplation, "Justice League…kind of has a nice sound."

"Justice League of America has an even nicer sound, Bats," said a finally finished with food and drink Barry Allen, while thumping his slightly protruding too-full stomach. "At least until such time as heroes from outside the country are inducted."

"What 'heroes'?" Dick asked with consternation and knitted brow. "It's just gonna be us four. Right?"

"He doesn't know?" asked a disbelieving Barry of Bruce and Clark. "You haven't told him?"

After sharing a now-is-as-good-a-time-as-any! look, Clark gave a go-ahead nod for Bruce to explain to the highly inquisitive, though obviously not as well rounded in the Good Guy biz, Nightwing-within-Dick Grayson.

"Here's the thing, Dick," began Bruce with a heavily heaved sigh. "About a year or two ago, Clark…that is Superman…and I learned that there were as many superheroes out there as there were super-villains. I mean, when you think about it it's only logical. Anyway, at last count, obtained by Superman and managed by me on the Batcave supercomputers, nearly a dozen exist…some with super-powers, like Superman and the Flash, and some without, like you and me…in the United States. Quite probably a lot more worldwide we just don't know about."

"And, uh, you know who they are and, uh, how to contact them to see if they'd like to join our, uh, Justice League?" asked Dick Grayson warily, yet with an otherwise open mind.

All Bruce, Clark, and Barry did in ready reply was smile and nod.

"Who?"

Inside the pressurized tri-pod, multi-level metallic headquarters clandestinely bankrolled by a billionaire's Black Ops funds set aside for super-secret, eyes-only projects rapidly built at super-speed by Superman on the dark side of the Moon, so as not to be easily observed by orbiting and earthbound super-telescopes…

"I am Wonder Woman," said the dark-haired beauty with blue eyes, dressed in patriotically colored abbreviated and form fitting uniform, as she stood in the midst of the centrally located combination common area and danger activity detection hub. "I live in New York and own a successful beauty boutique and go by the Human name Diana Prince. In truth, I am an Amazonian Princess with some super-powers, mostly attributable to semi-divine DNA, but also because of special gold bracelets, which I always wear, and this golden lasso, both suffused via the super-sciences existing upon the seemingly magical isle of Themyscira."

"Welcome, Wonder Woman," Superman said, co-acting head and co-founder of a superhero HQ in which Batman, Nightwing, and the Flash also participated in this inaugural reception shortly after superheroes either arrived or were brought for such a ceremony. "Next we have…"

"Green Lantern," said the appropriately attired, in green and white, and eye-masked individual with the glowing green, but not Kryptonite!, hourglass-shaped ring on the middle finger of his right gloved hand. "I'm a resident of Coast City. A test pilot, named Hal Jordan, for Ferris Aeronautics, Incorporated. My super-powers come exclusively from this ring…given to me by a dying alien named Abin Sur who belonged, as I do now, to a galactic 'police force', you might call it. One that encompasses hundreds of star systems in far distant space sectors presided over by an ancient humanoid race situated in a centralized star system on a planet called Oa. The nature of the ring grants me near limitless energy-based abilities…except when and where the energetically mercurial color yellow is involved. Don't ask…it's far too complicated."

"Welcome, Green Lantern," Batman, this time, said as greetings from Superman, Nightwing, Flash, and, now, Wonder Woman came forth as well. "Next…"

"Aquaman," announced the blonde-haired, shoulder length, superhero in gold-and-green super-costume. "I hail from Atlantis and am second in line to the throne within our Atlantic Ocean-based deep sea city. I am capable of breathing air for prolonged periods and, when so doing, go by the name Arthur Curry…wealthy recluse, as far as the public is concerned. I have super-strength and a certain amount of limited telepathic powers…both of which are much stronger when I return to the ocean depths."

And the superhero role call continued…

"Hawkman from the planet Thanagar where winged flight and super-strength are natural."

"Green Arrow…a non-super hero and wealthy entrepreneur named Oliver Queen."

"Atom…alter ego Ray Palmer. Artificially capable of super-shrinking to insect size or smaller…although my strength remains normal."

"Martian Manhunter, although the name is a misnomer, since I did not originally hail from Mars. That was simply where I rested prior to entertaining a crimefighting existence on your Earth. I am a shapeshifter from far, far further away."

As such continued within the confines of what would be called Watchtower, even though there's really nothing in the superstructure remotely like an actual "tower", on the unseen dark side of the Moon…

Doctor Light was just about to unleash his light-manipulative super-powers upon an unsuspecting populace. And not just in Metropolis or even in distant Gotham City or New York City/Manhattan.

"Let the fun begin. Heheheheheh-Heh!"

END OF CHAPTER 2


	3. Chapter 3

**THE BRIGHT KNIGHT**

By: Dan Bivens

Chapter 3/Conclusion

Swiftly flying, via carefully controlled extrusions of solidified light, from Metropolis to Gotham City to New York City, Doctor Light laughingly unleashed variously shaped and sized, highly concentrated projectiles of light.

"Ha, Ha, hahahahaha! I'll destroy as many meager citizens as necessary…as many cities as requisite…in order to rise as supreme ruler…to which Doctor Light is clearly destined to become! Ha, ha, hahahahaha!"

Though none heard Doctor Light's insanity spawned super-narcissistic rant above the combined din of destruction and death-cries, still did such as he spew such verbal bile while unleashing Hell-on-Earth.

And what of Earth's superheroes?

While in the midst of sober celebration within the grandiose newly dubbed, by unanimous vote, centralized Hall of Justice within the massive, metal-shelled, pressurized Watchtower headquarters…

BEEEET! BEEEET! BEEEET! BEEEET!

"The Monitor Womb computers!" exclaimed the Flash, using the begrudgingly agreed-upon name coming from him shortly after its completion and activation.

"That can only mean…," began Aquaman, the Atlantean prince.

"Earth's suffering from super-powered attacks!" finished Wonder Woman, Themysciran princess.

Before the Batman could ride down in one of the massive tube-elevators, designed for swift descent or ascension inside the multi-level superstructure…

"It is," announced Martian Manhunter as his singularly super-telepathic mind instantly reached out through 238,857 miles of airlessness between the Moon and Earth, "a villain with absolute mastery over light. He has swiftly laid waste to substantial sections of Metropolis, Gotham City, and, at the moment, completing same within New York City. His intentions are to do so to all American super-cities before…"

"Martian Manhunter's right," suddenly added Superman after double-checking with his super-vision. "There isn't a moment to lose."

Scant seconds later, this austere super-assemblage streaked toward Earth at velocities defying present Human technologies largely thanks to Green Lantern. Who used his green-glowing ring to create an enormous airtight sphere about all who could not fly or withstand the harshness of space: Batman, Nightwing, the Flash, Aquaman, Atom, Wonder Woman, and Green Arrow. Fortunately the Flash's yellow boots were not of the energetic nature and, therefore, interfered in no way with the Green Lantern's ring power.

Leaving only himself, Martian Manhunter, Hawkman, and Superman to safely soar swiftly from the dark side of the Moon without artificial assistance.

In mere minutes, rather than the days it would take astronauts in manmade machines, the Justice Leaguers reached Earth to swiftly descend through the thickness of its atmosphere.

At that moment all, save for the non-flying Leaguers still contained within the open-topped protective green-glowing sphere still established via Green Lantern's ring, proceeded, under their own power of super-flight, straight toward the affected cities.

Superman and Martian Manhunter would ply their super-powers to help both Metropolitans and Gothamites not killed via Doctor Light's initial attacks…

Wonder Woman would assist all she could in New York City…

While the rest pressed their counterattack to Doctor Light currently flying high over Manhattan.

Even as the Master of Light hovered above the island extension of New York, due largely to the quite logical fact that killing from a distance was always significantly less demanding, emotionally, than killing close up…

"And now…I shall destroy this seat of New York opulence!" snarled Doctor Light, drunk with the power provided via that curious combination of self-created costume, designed initially for literal invisibility, with the late Dr. Jacob Finlay's superpower-derivative chemicals. "Then…it's on to the West Coast! After that…!"

"The world?" sarcastically said the Batman from within the partially opened sphere, still created and maintained via Green Lantern's ring, alongside fellow Leaguers, the Flash, Nightwing, Green Arrow, Atom, and Aquaman. "When will you so-called 'Masters of whatever' villains learn a new phrase?"

"Batman!" angrily exclaimed Doctor Light in instantaneous identification of the famous cowl-and-caped crimefighter. Then, after taking in those standing with the Dark Knight Detective, "And who might these others be?"

Speaking powerfully and, just a little pompously, Green Lantern proclaimed, "We are the Justice League of America! And you are…!"

Not one to wait to be attacked, as far too many super-villains invariably did, Doctor Light redirected his light-manipulative power. Sending immense solid globes of light straight at Green Lantern and, by extension, the other Leaguers protectively contained within the opened-topped sphere of energy via Green Lantern's ring.

"Uhnnn!"

It was all that the Intergalactic Policeman could do to not tumble from the sky which, because of the self-protecting envelope of energy consistently surrounding his green-and-white costumed Self, would not fatally harm him, but which would kill four of the five standing inside said sphere.

For, of the four non-flyers, only Aquaman's super-body and Atom's super-shrinking abilities, could withstand such a fall. Batman, Nightwing, Flash, and Green Arrow would most certainly die.

Though the Batman's blue-gray costume's protective padding might stop bullets and protect him from most impact-producing drops, such would be wholly insufficient for such from this height. Such was even truer for Nightwing, Flash, and Green Arrow, whom had no such bulletproof protection within their identity-hiding guises.

Realizing that Green Lantern was fighting at a distinct disadvantage, Batman led the non-super-powered heroes in pressing the attack against Doctor Light via a variety of devices and applied acrobatics without chancing certain death to be had by totally leaving the protective confines of Green Lantern's sphere-turned-broad prow.

As to the Flash, now that the green-glowing flattened-out area had been created from Green Lantern's indomitable will, he had the evenness and solidity necessary for his singular super-speed.

However, Doctor Light would not be much of a Master had he not taken steps to protect himself via unseen-but-present personal shielding. However, even though anti-personnel devices retrieved from Bat-belt plus Nightwing's collapsible-extendable unyieldingly metallic fighting stave and Green Arrow's ingeniously designed bow-launched multi-headed shafts did force Doctor Light into a defensive situation while all were still high above Manhattan…

"Damn you all!" he angrily growled after countering the various hero-specific assaults launched by the Batman, Nightwing, Green Arrow, and the Flash. "Now you shall all pay…with your worthless lives!"

Before Doctor Light could launch hastily-created solidified light globes, of various sizes, shapes, and densities, at a finally fully recovered Green Lantern still limited by the ring-projected prow within which the Flash, the Batman, Nightwing, and Green Arrow continued their fighting tactics…

"Not so long as Hawkman can soar through the air, villain!"

No sooner said than…

Utilizing his Nth metal attack weapon, which those also-winged Thanagarians had long ago dubbed the Power Mace, not only had Hawkman managed to counter quickly created light-spheres sent forth from the hands of Doctor Light…

"I shall kill you yet, Hawkman!"

…but it unleashed an energy, in the form of lightning-like bolts, that defied Doctor Light's abilities to control…

"Gyyyiiii!"

…essentially overloading his light-manipulative powers long enough to allow the non-super Leaguers, still supported via Green Lantern-created platform far above Manhattan high-rises, so that the Batman, Nightwing, and Green Arrow could basically get in their non-super-powered pummeling. Even as momentarily overlooked, too-small-to-be-seen Atom utilized his average-sized strength against the super-villain from slightly inside the Master of Light…

…while the Flash, also still supported by Green Lantern's ring-projected platform and, thus, continually allowing for traction, stepped up his super-speed directed attacks.

All serving to so dominate Doctor Light that…

"Noooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooooo!"

XXXXXXXXXXXXX

"Let this first post super-action gathering," proudly pronounced the Batman now that the Justice League of America heroes had triumphantly returned to the Watchtower on the dark side of the Moon, "come to order in this Hall of Justice."

While Superman stood alongside the Dark Knight, Nightwing, and the Flash, the official founders of the JLA, all the rest, Martian Manhunter, Wonder Woman, Hawkman, Atom, Green Arrow, Green Lantern…

"This meeting is, of course, being transmitted live into Aquaman's special pod-quarters," continued Batman as all glanced toward the two-way wall-screen display showing Aquaman within a watery home-away-from-home. "His expenditure of physical energy during the battle has demanded that he return to the main element he needs in order to properly revive."

Via mutual telepathy, Martian Manhunter and Aquaman quickly traded gratuitous salutations, while Superman next stepped forward to say his proud piece.

"I think I'm speaking for all of us here, when I point out that this assemblage of superheroes…which includes, in my opinion, Batman, Nightwing, and Green Arrow, without whom this fight for the innocent could not have been eventually achieved…that the country…indeed, the world…needs a super-group as much as individual, city-specific figures for Truth, Justice…and, yes, the American Way. For the American Way, as I use it, refers to not only Freedom…but the universal right to live without the threat of super-powered harbingers bringing potential destruction and widespread death."

"What Super-Shakespeare is saying," amusedly said an always fun-filled Flash with understood respect for Superman, "is that the world sometimes needs…a Justice League."

As heroic cheers for one and all filled the re-circulated air of Watchtower's common area now called Hall of Justice…

The defeated Doctor Light remained in a comatose state within a hibernation contrivance quickly created, via the super-speed of Flash and super-strength of Superman and willpower-controlled ring energies of the Green Lantern, and based solely upon blueprints provided by S.T.A.R. Labs scientific designers.

Where, it was, at least, sincerely hoped, that he would remain so not even the combined abilities of the JLA would be required to combat the Master of Light again.

But, the exact instant such supreme super-villainy loosened itself upon an unsuspecting populace anywhere in the world…

The Justice Leaguers would be there.

END


End file.
